The Council of General Synod (CoGS) has asked the general secretary’s office to ask dioceses and provinces across Canada to contribute to a pool for travel and accommodation expenses to enable it to meet in May 2009. The financial management and development committee and management team had earlier recommended that all national church committees cancel at least one meeting within the triennium as a cost-saving measure to help reduce General Synod’s budget deficit (See related story, page 1). One suggested option was to have a teleconference instead of a meeting, which costs between $60,000 to $65,000. But members argued that CoGS “is a governance body, not a program body,” and as such, it needs to have face-to-face meetings in order to govern. Others mentioned that CoGS had a lot of business to attend to in the lead up to General Synod in 2010.
